Off The Bar draws out it’s satirical magnifying glass to observe and investigate some of the major talking points from the weekend’s Premier League games — including the apparent hoax at the Etihad and the eternal gloom that sits over the Stadium of Light.
– #360view: John Terry change shows Chelsea need new blood
– EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Argentina boss Sabella turns down Saudi job
– #360view: Lack of concentration behind Barca defensive woes
– EPL: Mourinho slams Chelsea for errors in 3-0 loss to Man City
Genuine or fake?
Chelsea’s shock 3-0 loss to Manchester City was the first time that Jose Mourinho has conceded more than one goal in a match against either of his Manchester rivals. Crikey. It’s perhaps no wonder then that Jose found it so exceedingly difficult to accept the scoreline, declaring it ‘completely fake’. As always with the Special One it’s hard to know if he actually believes every syllable he utters. Deciphering a hieroglyphic translation of the terms and conditions of house insurance makes for easier reading than deconstructing Mourinho’s maverick mind.
It certainly wouldn’t surprise Off The Bar if Jose genuinely did believe the world was duped with a ‘knock off’ match that never really took place. The 3-0 result did look pretty convincing, but who’s to say a legitimate 1-1 scoreline won’t suddenly turn up in a clear out of your gran’s garage in thirty years time? For now, we recommend Jose calls in some of football’s best antique dealers – Harry ‘I’m not a wheeler dealer’ Redknapp is free – to come in and check the real authenticity of the match. We suggest starting with a look at the credibility of the Premier League signature logo in the bottom right corner and a check to see whether Aguero is made of genuine highly toned flesh or a cheap plastic substitute material made in China.
city players reaction to Mourinho comment “the result was fake..” https://t.co/fXe2lnYjie
— Fergie’s Fledglings (@RedDevilTimes) August 16, 2015
Merciless Mourinho
Word of footballing antiques brings us very nicely on to John Terry. He played every minute of Cheslea’s title winning season last campaign, but he was hauled off here at half time. Amazingly, this was the first time Mourinho has substituted Terry. That must have made for an even more awkward exchange than Jose sheepishly ringing up Eva Carneiro to ask where she keeps the plasters (having penned so many bids for John Stones, a flurry of paper cuts are inevitable).
By effectively explaining to the world’s press that Terry has the turning speed of an ocean liner in a sea of syrup, Jose is dangerously close to alienating a second club favourite in the space of one week. Who is next to feel the ice-cold wrath of Mourinho and where will it end? How long until Diego Costa’s troublesome hamstring is completely banned from the player’s musculoskeletal system? Will Jose commission an Abramovich-funded spaceflight to apply a mighty fire extinguisher to the sun after Asmir Begovic loses flight of a high ball in the glaring sunlight? Be it Terry or the source of all life, nothing is safe from a stubborn Jose. Nothing.
Mourinho has managed John Terry in 177 #BPL matches. Today is the first time he’s substituted him #MCFC 1-0 #CFC pic.twitter.com/SQLhtF150D
— The Sun – Football (@TheSunFootball) August 16, 2015
Sunderland get that sinking feeling
There were some very familiar scenes at the Stadium of Light on Saturday — distraught at a second heavy loss in a row, fans streamed out of the ground. It was an evacuation of such number and speed that Britain’s land mass has been temporarily transformed into a 600 mile sea-saw (as it stands, Liverpool’s Monday night match at Bournemouth will be played 100 metres under the English Channel sea). For nearly every Premier League season in living memory the Black Cats fans have had to endure the same sinking feeling — woeful form for the majority of the season and an acrimonious managerial shake up in the new year before achieving a great escape in the final weeks of the season. Plop Bill Murray into the narrative and you would have a pretty acceptable sequel to Ground Hog Day.
With that eternal loop in mind, it’s perhaps time that Dick Advocaat and his coaching staff tried to recreate the exact conditions of April — a time where Sunderland’s players defrost from a cryogenic state of mediocrity to salvage enough points to survive the drop. We suggest their youth team immediately wrap cling film around the changing room toilet bowels to simulate the japes of April Fools’ Day, Advocaat dishes out chocolate eggs to squad members in an Easter bunny onesie and club administrators pretend to process the paperwork of Lee Cattermole’s 15th yellow card of the season. Foolproof.
SUMMARY: Dick Advocaat & Sunderland this season. pic.twitter.com/E0wWIXe48X
— BBC Sporf (@BBCSporf) August 15, 2015
Mitrovic must mellow
After very nearly getting sent off after three seconds on debut last week, Newcastle’s new striker Aleksandar Mitrovic was clearly chastened by his ill discipline – earning a yellow card after a mere 90 seconds in his second substitute outing. We should laud Mitrovic really — it’s an 87 second improvement. If we extrapolate that data we can predict that by Newcastle’s fifth game of the 2017/2018 season, the Serbain will go a whole game without tempting the referee to run Mitrovic an early bath.
So, what can be done to stop the 20-year-old raw talent going into games more charred and fired up and than a burnt barbecue sausage? Off The Bar recommends the tried and tested method of locking a player in a padded room with a litter of Labrador puppies an hour before kick off, all whilst funnelling Enya’s soothing Greatest Hits album through speakers. Then finish things up by getting club legend Peter Beardsley to come in and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar in his softly spoken Geordie accent. If it was good enough for Faustino Asprilla, it’s good enough for Mitrovic.
Aleksandar Mitrovic’s Newcastle career by numbers so far: 24 minutes 3 fouls 2 yellow cards 0 shots 0 goals Nutter. pic.twitter.com/CJ6RN77nZD
— Squawka Football (@Squawka) August 15, 2015
Lukaku’s lucky charm
Perhaps Mitrovic can borrow an additional pre-match calming method from Romelu Lukaku. After accidentally thwacking a ball in the face of a Southampton fan during the warm up, a super sorry Lukaku scrambled up the stands to offer the woman a warm hug, his sincere apologies and his match day shirt (we can only assume she rejected the latter — the khaki green with electric orange logo is an assault on the brain that even Jack Bauer would deem a torture method too far).
#EFC striker Romelu Lukaku hit a #saintsfc fan in the warm up and then did this. What a lovely bloke. pic.twitter.com/DUHAILcJWU
— Sport360° (@Sport360) August 15, 2015
This classy gesture of peace between two rival camps worked out very nicely for Romelu — within the following hour he reconfigured his shooting sight from fan nostrils to goal nets to score two great goals in the first-half against the Saints. For us, this lady seems like the perfect acquisition for Everton boss Roberto Martinez to get his dusty chequebook out for. Lucky charms and an on fire Lukaku are a precious thing in football and Everton have been painfully quiet in the transfer market — so much so that a new species of spider has been discovered in Martinez’s office fax machine and will be analysed in a forthcoming BBC natural history documentary.
